Market penetration of solar power expected to be 12.5 per cent at 166 GW by 2025: KPMG

India aims to reduce emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels, and solar power is likely to contribute 4 per cent towards this target, states KPMG in India’s report, titled ‘The Rising Sun – Disruption on the horizon.’ETEnergyWorld | Updated: November 16, 2015, 17:11 IST

KPMG ENRich 2015 (Left to Right) Manish Aggarwal, partner and head - Energy and Natural Resources, KPMG in India, Santosh Kamath, partner and head, Renewable Energy, KPMG in India, Michiel Soeting, Partner and Global Chair, ENR, KPMG, Richard Rekhy , CEO, KPMG in India, Piyush Goyal, Power Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, Oil Minister, Arvind Maharan, Partner and Head of Infrastructure and Government Services, KPMG in India, Nitin Atroley, Partner and Head, Sales and Markets, KPMG in India.*** The market penetration of solar power is expected to be 5.7 per cent (54GW) by 2020 and 12.5 per cent (166GW) by 2025

*** Solar power prices are anticipated to be approximately 10 per cent lower than coal power prices by 2020

*** The solar rooftop market could reach 10GW by 2020 and 49GW by 2025

New Delhi: A KPMG India annual energy conclave today revealed that Solar power could scale up substantially to be a significant energy source by 2025, with the market penetration of solar power expected to be 5.7 per cent (54 GW) by 2020 and 12.5 per cent (166 GW) by 2025.

India aims to reduce emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels, and solar power is likely to contribute 4 per cent towards this target, states KPMG in India's report, titled 'The Rising Sun - Disruption on the horizon', KPMG said in a statement today.

The report was released today by Piyush Goyal, Minister of State for Power, Coal, and New and Renewable Energy and Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State, Petroleum and Natural Gas at ENRich 2015, KPMG in India's annual energy conclave, the statement added.

The report talks about how the scale up and competitiveness of solar power could disrupt the traditional generators.

The disruptive force is expected to start being felt from 2017 and may accelerate post 2020.

In some states which are promoting solar (and also wind power) aggressively, conventional coal generators could see their Plant Load Factors (PLFs) fall by as much as 10-15 per cent by 2020, as solar replaces coal-fired generation in the daytime hours.

This effect may speed up post 2020 with the annual addition of large amounts of solar (estimated to exceed by 20 GW per year by 2022-23), KPMG said in the statement.

The report highlights that the price for solar power has seen a decline; today, in India, solar prices are within 15 per cent of the coal power prices on a levelised basis and, it is expected that that by 2020, solar power prices would be approximately 10 per cent lower than coal power prices.

The solar rooftop power, today, is already competitive compared to grid power for many consumers and, as per the report, if combined with storage, it could be cheaper than grid power after 2022 for a large section of the consumers and drive a considerable shift to rooftop power.

A 'Solar House' that is self-sufficient in energy terms could be a reality within the coming decade.

Speaking on the occasion, Piyush Goyal said, "We need to re-engineer our process to create energy efficiency and conservation to give India an affordable energy access. I am personally convinced that any amount of investment in this sector will have a quick pay back."

The report also recognises that significant conventional generation capacities are also needed to meet the country's growing energy demand.

In fact, conventional generators will need to contribute 60% per cent of incremental capacity needs up to 2025, with solar contributing between 20-25% per cent, and considering another 15% per cent coming from wind. However, these additional capacities will need different attributes from the ones we have seen so far. These attributes are related to flexibility in generation (in terms of ramp rates and minimum thresholds) and low fixed cost, and higher variable cost preference, rather than vice versa, the statement added.

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